Week 31, Sunday. Words of THE WORD

ANTIPHON (click for full Psalm)

“Forsake me not, O Lord, my God; be not far from me! Make haste and come to my help, O Lord, my strong salvation!" (Psalm 38:27-28)

COLLECT

Almighty and merciful God,
by whose gift your faithful offer You
right and praiseworthy service,
grant, we pray,
that we may hasten without stumbling
to receive the things you have promised.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God,
for ever and ever.

RESPONSORIAL PSALM (click for full Psalm)

I love you, Lord, my strength. (Psalm 18:2).

SCRIPTURE EXCERPT (click for all readings)

“Brothers and sisters:
The levitical priests were many
because they were prevented by death from remaining in office,
but Jesus, because he remains forever,
has a priesthood that does not pass away.
Therefore, he is always able to save (σῴζειν, sozein) those who approach (προσερχομένους, proserchomenous) God through him,
since he lives forever to make intercession (ἐντυγχάνειν, entugchanein) for them.
It was fitting that we should have such a high priest:
holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners,
higher than the heavens.
He has no need, as did the high priests,
to offer sacrifice day after day,
first for his own sins and then for those of the people;
he did that once for all when he offered himself.
For the law appoints men subject to weakness to be high priests,
but the word of the oath, which was taken after the law,
appoints a son,
who has been made perfect forever”
(Letter to the Hebrews 7:23-28).

REFLECTION

This Sunday’s proclamation from the Letter to the Hebrews places Jesus, Son and appointed High Priest, front and center in the Sacred Text as well as in the center of the disciple’s life as Jesus is the locus of and point of contact with salvation. He is salvation. Contrasted with the Levitical priests of Old, Jesus the Son and High Priest differs not solely in terms of function but in His very being. Because of Who Jesus is, He consequently acts in a manner different from those whose priesthood is subjected to the finitude of present existence. The fact that Jesus “remains” recalls the rich imagery from the Gospel according to Saint John that speaks of His abiding presence and His dwelling among us. One recalls “Emmanuel” from the Gospel according to Saint Matthew that not only promises “God-with-us” in the beginning but also the promise “I am with you until the end of the ages.” Thus the declaration that “He [Jesus] remains” underscores not only a temporal existence but a ‘being-with,’ an indwelling animating the life of the disciple. Furthermore, Jesus’ Priesthood is unique in that it is “a priesthood that does not pass away (ἀπαράβατον, aparabaton).” In Greek, ἀπαράβατος is used rarely in the New Testament and scholars debate various shades of meaning as the word can mean “without a successor,” “immutable” and “non-transferable.” While certainly respecting linguistic and historical studies, theologically is makes good sense to keep all these translations as each sheds a particular light on the Person Jesus and His Priesthood. True, the translations may not do anything for Him, but for us as His disciples, each word is crucial in how each believer approaches the High Priest, Jesus the Son.

The Letter to the Hebrews is clear that Jesus’ Priesthood is ordered to others and others is defined here particularly those who need to be healed; in other words everyone who is a sinner – all of us! What is interesting though in this part of the text is the implication of what everyone ought to be doing: approaching God [the Father]! That movement can not be done on one’s own and requires an intervention of Someone ‘saving us.’ σῴζειν (sozein), the Greek verb “to save,” conveys two motions that must be taken together: “to remove from a dangerous situation” AND “to bring to safety.” σῴζειν, as understood in antiquity, is not a singular activity. As good as removal from a dangerous situation truly is, whatever one is removed from must be delivered to an experience of safety. A good part of this meaning of σῴζειν is rooted in Greek medicine that viewed the removal of illness or disease as only 1 part of medicine’s art. The elimination of disease, a good in itself, must be completed by an environment and actions that not only sustain but promote health and enable a person to thrive. This is the unique work of Jesus’ Priesthood seen previously in the Letter to the Hebrews referencing His atoning and sacrificial death. In this section of the Letter to the Hebrews, Jesus’ saving Priesthood is also expressed by His life that ‘lives forever to intercede for us.’

“To make intercession (ἐντυγχάνειν, entugchanein)” is rooted in the language of voicing a complaint or making an appeal. What is most noteworthy is that in antiquity, the complaint or the appeal was secondary to the fact that either HAD TO BE DONE IN PERSON! (Recall times dealing with ‘customer service’ and being put on hold … would things be different if we could talk with someone in customer service eyeball-to-eyeball, mano-a-mano?) The image here is once again one of being an Advocate, a Paraclete. In his Theological Oration IV: On the Son, Saint Gregory of Nazianzus writes, “Petition does not imply here, as it does in popular parlance, a desire for legal satisfaction; there is something humiliating in the idea. No, it means interceding for us in his role of mediator, in the way that the Spirit too is spoken of as “making petition” on our behalf. “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” Even at this moment he is, as human, interceding for my salvation, until he makes me divine by the power of his incarnate humanity. “As human,” I say, because he still has with him the body he assumed, though he is no longer “regarded as human,” meaning the bodily experiences, which, sin aside, are ours and his. This is the “advocate” we have in Jesus—not a slave who falls prostrate before the Father on our behalf. Get rid of what is really a slavish suspicion, unworthy of the Spirit. It is not in God to make the demand, nor in the Son to submit to it; the thought is unjust to God. No, it is by what he suffered as man that he persuades us, as Word and encourager, to endure. That, for me, is the meaning of his “advocacy.””

Once again, the Word of God in speaking of the unique Priesthood of Jesus the Son of God, we are dealing with a Divine Person Who, like the Other Divine Persons, desires our heart, mind, body, soul and strength. Jesus the Son of our Father desires to be-in-communion-with-us and for that encounter to spark an ongoing relationship with Him as Person. Putting it another way, ““At the heart of catechesis we find, in essence, a Person, the Person of Jesus of Nazareth, the only Son from the Father. . .who suffered and died for us and who now, after rising, is living with us forever.” To catechize is “to reveal in the Person of Christ the whole of God‘s eternal design reaching fulfilment in that Person. It is to seek to understand the meaning of Christ‘s actions and words and of the signs worked by him.” Catechesis aims at putting “people . . . in communion . . . with Jesus Christ: only he can lead us to the love of the Father in the Spirit and make us share in the life of the Holy Trinity. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 426).””

Week 30, Sunday. Words of THE WORD.

ANTIPHON (click for full Psalm)

“Let the hearts that seek the Lord rejoice; constantly seek His face." (Psalm 105:3-4)

COLLECT

Almighty ever-living God,
increase our faith, hope and charity,
and make us love what you command,
so that we may merit what you promise.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God,
for ever and ever.

RESPONSORIAL PSALM (click for full Psalm)

The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy. (Psalm 126:3).

SCRIPTURE EXCERPT (click for all readings)

“Brothers and sisters:
Every high priest is taken from among men
and made their representative before God,
to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.
He is able to deal patiently with the ignorant and erring,
for he himself is beset by weakness
and so, for this reason, must make sin offerings for himself
as well as for the people.
No one takes this honor upon himself
but only when called by God,
just as Aaron was.
In the same way,
it was not Christ who glorified himself in becoming high priest,
but rather the one who said to him:
You are my son:
this day I have begotten you;
just as he says in another place:
You are a priest forever
according to the order of Melchizedek.”
(Letter to the Hebrews 4:14-16)

REFLECTION

As the sequential proclamation from the Letter to the Hebrews continues this Sunday, the Sacred Text places before us once again the Person Jesus, the Eternal High Priest Who lives forever to make intercession for us. Timely as it is, this Proclamation comes only a few days after the publication of the Synod on The New Evangelization’s Message to the People of God. Article 3 of that document, “The personal encounter with Jesus Christ in the Church,” is worth pondering in the light of Hebrews.

“Before saying anything about the forms that this new evangelization must assume, we feel the need to tell you with profound conviction that the faith determines everything in the relationship that we build with the person of Jesus who takes the initiative to encounter us. The work of the new evangelization consists in presenting once more the beauty and perennial newness of the encounter with Christ to the often distracted and confused heart and mind of the men and women of our time, above all to ourselves. We invite you all to contemplate the face of the Lord Jesus Christ, to enter the mystery of his existence given for us on the cross, reconfirmed in his resurrection from the dead as the Father’s gift and imparted to us through the Spirit. In the person of Jesus, the mystery of God the Father’s love for the entire human family is revealed. He did not want us to remain in a false autonomy. Rather he reconciled us to himself in a renewed pact of love.

The Church is the space offered by Christ in history where we can encounter him, because he entrusted to her his Word, the Baptism that makes us God’s children, his Body and his Blood, the grace of forgiveness of sins above all in the sacrament of Reconciliation, the experience of communion that reflects the very mystery of the Holy Trinity, the strength of the Spirit that generates charity towards all.

We must form welcoming communities in which all outcasts find a home, concrete experiences of communion which attract the disenchanted glance of contemporary humanity with the ardent force of love – “See how they love one another!” (Tertullian, Apology, 39, 7). The beauty of faith must particularly shine in the actions of the sacred Liturgy, above all in the Sunday Eucharist. It is precisely in liturgical celebrations that the Church reveals herself as God’s work and renders the meaning of the Gospel visible in word and gesture.

It is up to us today to render experiences of the Church concretely accessible, to multiply the wells where thirsting men and women are invited to encounter Jesus, to offer oases in the deserts of life. Christian communities and, in them, every disciple of the Lord are responsible for this: an irreplaceable testimony has been entrusted to each one, so that the Gospel can enter the lives of all. This requires of us holiness of life.”

This “holiness of life,” – the summons and imperative of Baptism-Confirmation-Holy Eucharist – is made possible through the mediation of Jesus’ Priesthood. Pope Leo the Great, writing in the fifth century put it this way:

“Our origin, corrupted right after its start, needed to be reborn with new beginnings. A victim had to be offered for reconciliation, a victim that was at one and the same time both related to our race and foreign to our defilement. In this way alone could the plan of God — wherein it pleased him that the sin of the world should be wiped away through the birth and passion of Jesus Christ — in this way alone could the plan of God be of any avail for the times of every generation. Nor would the mysteries — as they pass through various developments in time — disturb us. Instead, they would reassure us, since the faith by which we live would not have differed at any stage.

Let them stop complaining, those who speak up against the divine arrangements with a disloyal murmuring and object to the lateness of our Lord’s nativity — as if that which was done in the last age of the world was not applied to previous eras as well. For the incarnation of the Word accomplished by being about to take place the very same thing that it did by having taken place — as the mystery of human salvation never ceased to be active in any earlier age. What the apostles preached, the prophets had also announced. Nor was it too late in being fulfilled, since it has always been believed. But the wisdom and “kindness of God” — by this delay in his salvific work — has made us better disposed to accept his calling. That way, what had been foretold through so many ages by numerous signs, numerous words and numerous mysteries would not be open to doubt in these days of the gospel. That way, the birth of the Savior — which was to exceed all wonders and the whole measure of human intelligence — would engender in us a faith all the more steadfast, the more often and the earlier it had been proclaimed beforehand.

No, indeed, it is not that God has just recently come up with a plan for attending to human affairs, nor that it has taken him this long to show compassion. Rather, he laid down from the very “foundation of the world” one and the same “cause of salvation” for all. For the grace of God — by which the entire assembly of saints has always been justified — was not initiated at the time when Christ was born, but augmented. This “mystery of great compassion,” with which the whole world has now been filled, was so powerful even in its prefiguration that those who believed it when promised attained to it no less than those who received it when actually given (Sermon 23).